


you're still here; i think i'm fine

by possessedradios (orphan_account)



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Kindergarten Teacher Kepler Has My Whole Entire Heart, M/M, Post-Canon, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 07:03:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16192520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/possessedradios
Summary: There's three drawings hanging on Kepler's fridge. Or, more accurately, Kepler's and Jacobi's fridge.





	you're still here; i think i'm fine

**Author's Note:**

> (This kind of is a follow-up to ["found the stars; lost my mind"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13344321), but can be read without knowing it, I guess! (It's a good fic though, tbh. You should go read it.))
> 
> Title of the fic is taken from "Ghosts" by MandoPony.
> 
> Anyway, I’m the founder and firm defender of team “In an AU where Kepler survives, he’d make for The Best Kindergarten Teacher”, come find me at a Denny’s parking lot at 2:47 am and fight me over it if you must.

Jacobi still doesn’t talk to him by the time he puts the first drawing on the fridge. It shows a sketchily drawn rocket flying to what looks like the moon. There’s three windows with three smiling faces.

It’s their usual routine; Kepler comes home and Jacobi is on the couch in the living room, and Kepler says hello and then starts talking about his day. He mentions that he kids all seem to hate math, even the ones who are good at it, isn’t it strange, that’s sort of strange, right, Jacobi – but he doesn’t mention the drawing, for some reason.

Jacobi definitely sees it, though. He goes into the kitchen about three hours after Kepler came home; after three hours of Jacobi ignoring him with a stoic patience he never seemed to possess back while they were still working for Goddard. Kepler can hear the hesitancy – the sound of Jacobi’s footsteps stops, and then it takes just a little longer than it usually does for him to open the fridge.

He doesn’t say anything once he’s back in the living room, though, he just takes a sip of his energy drink and then pulls his laptop back on his lap. 

(He never drank this crap before space, but Maxwell did, and that’s why Kepler will keep commenting on Jacobi’s horrible eating habits, but never on this.)

* * *

Weeks pass. Kepler talks at Jacobi, Jacobi doesn’t say a single word. Sometimes, Kepler _dreams_ , and sometimes, when he really, really can’t stand to sit in the bedroom for even a single second longer, he joins Jacobi in the living room instead, and Jacobi lets him sit with him for a few hours, and they silently watch shitty crime shows. Business as usual, until–

Until Jacobi, one night, between Criminal Minds and CSI: Miami, suddenly asks, “You okay?” with a voice so soft that Kepler only barely understands the words.

He’s so startled that he answers without thinking – “No.”

There’s a sharp inhale from Jacobi, and then a few seconds of silence, and then: “Yeah, uh. I don’t know how to deal with that. I didn’t expect you to answer honestly.”

“It was an accident,” Kepler says, and Jacobi says, “Of course,” and then they’re quiet, until Kepler goes back to bed to get two more hours of sleep until his alarm goes off.

* * *

The second drawing joins the first a few weeks later, when hushed conversations in the middle of the night have become common. They don’t talk much, and they don’t talk about important things, but Jacobi makes the occasional sarcastic comment about plot holes and overused tropes and uncomfortable romantic tension that still manages to lack basic chemistry and … and it’s nice.

Anyway.

The second drawing depicts a red star, a green alien and a few crudely drawn figures holding what looks like to be ray guns.

And: Jacobi comes home, they sit next to each other for a while, silently, Jacobi gets up and walks over into the kitchen, it takes a few seconds longer than necessary for him to open the fridge, there’s the by now almost uncomfortably familiar sound of energy drink cans clicking together, the sound of the fridge being thrown shut, a few footsteps, and then– 

“What the hell do you tell these kids?”

Kepler looks up, surprised by the fact Jacobi’s talking to him – it’s not 2 am. They don’t do conversations unless it’s 2 am.

“What do you mean?” he asks, as casual as he can manage. He’s vaguely aware he’s afraid to– to break this, to somehow ruin it; afraid Jacobi will suddenly change his mind and just walk out on him–

It’s weird, being afraid. He doesn’t do afraid unless it’s 1:55 am.

“The fucking pictures. The drawings. They’re– There’s a Simpsons-like alien on one of them, green and slimy and all!”

“You’re meaning to say I should have elaborated that the aliens looked like humans?”

“You–” Jacobi stares at him, and there’s something in his eyes that Kepler thinks might be anger, but he’s not sure, and he doesn’t know what would have prompted the emotion. “You actually tell them about _space_? You tell them your insane stories?”

Kepler shrugs a little. “They like them.”

“No one likes your stories.”

“They do.”

“Well, yeah, they’re kids, duh. They’re stupid.”

“I’m the one teaching them.”

Jacobi silently stares at him, and Kepler really doesn’t know what they’re doing here, what kind of conversation they’re having, or whether Jacobi really is angry – maybe he misread his behavior and expression, he’s not sure; he knows he used to be good at it, but if he’s being completely honest, Jacobi always readily surrender himself to it; not even an open book, just– all the information right there on the cover, in big neon letters, and now–

Well. It’s all different, now.

Jacobi slowly sits down and opens his energy drink. “You tell them about space,” he says. Not a question, this time, but Kepler nods anyway.

“I do.”

“The people on the drawing…” Jacobi starts and then trails off mid-sentence.

“Us, and the Hephaestus crew,” Kepler says, and he only just now realizes that he’s _still_ nervous, talking to Jacobi feels so much nicer than talking at him, and he doesn’t want him to stop again, and he almost says it out loud, stops himself at the last moment. “... I told them we joined them to fight the aliens together.”

Jacobi snorts. “Yeah. What heroes we are.”

Kepler shrugs.

_(Haydan had told him, after he started telling all those stories, that he wants to become an astronaut, now, that he wants to go on adventures, too, and there had been an moment– a feeling of intense panic, just for a second or two, when Kepler had looked at him, so young and idealistic and innocent, and then, the urge to tell him, no, no, you don’t want that, there will be murders and mutinies and the nights are endless–)_

It’s quiet. It’s quiet, for almost half an hour, and Kepler, even though it almost _hurts_ to admit it to even just himself, is terrified, because he’s sure that this is it, the silence is back and won’t be broken again until at night during commercial breaks.

But Jacobi does speak again, in the end. 

“That’s not what I meant,” he whispers. “I got that it was the Hephaestus crew. But the– the first drawing. With the rocket.”

Kepler turns his head to look at him, frowning. “What about–”

“There’s three people,” Jacobi mumbles. 

Suddenly, he wants him to shut up.

“You tell them– You told them about– about Al– Maxwell.”

Ah.

_(“And we had a genius programmer with us, you see, truly the smartest person I’ve ever known. Do you know who Einstein was?” – “The one with the hair?” – “Yes, Keisha, the one with the hair. He was very, very intelligent, but I can assure you, that programmer? She was much, much smarter than him.”)_

“I did, yes.”

And that, of course, might explain the anger in Jacobi’s eyes. 

Jacobi nods, and looks away, stares at his knees instead, and in the end, after twelve minutes and a few seconds, he quietly stands and leaves the room, and then the apartment, and Kepler wishes Jacobi had told him everything he’s thinking, maybe things would get easier if he’d just finally shout at him, yell at him that it’s all his fault, that he killed her.

He comes back hours later. It’s almost comforting to realize that Kepler still knows Jacobi well enough to notice when he’s drunk, or high, or just coming from someone random guy’s apartment.

* * *

Kepler doesn’t go to the living room late at night for a week, even though there’s three– no, four nights he’d really, really like to. Jacobi doesn’t talk to him whenever they sit next to each other during the day, either. The two drawings still hang on their fridge. They still sit next to each other, just… in silence, once more.

When Kepler wakes up, night eight of just staying inside the bedroom without getting any more sleep, shaking and paranoid, staring at the wall instead, he decides to just go, anyway. If Jacobi’s still mad at him, if he won’t say a single word… He can live with that. With being alone, he can’t live. Not right now. The dreams are worse, and he never woke up two nights in a row; not like this, and it’s not just memories, anymore, now it’s Jacobi dying, _everyone_ dying and–

And he gets up, almost frantically, almost panicked. He stands in front of his bedroom door for a minute or two, unmoving, eyes closed, and just when he’s about to gather up the courage to open it– 

(and part of him hates himself for this, because opening a door should not take _any courage at all_ )

–Jacobi is the one who pushes it open. 

Kepler takes a step back, surprised, shocked almost, and stares at him. Jacobi doesn’t look at him as he steps into the room. His eyes are fixed onto the floor even as he pushes Kepler towards the bed. “Go back to bed,” he says quietly, voice neutral. Hearing him speak startles him almost as much as his just coming into this room. He hadn’t expected Jacobi to talk to him again. 

Maybe it’s that surprise that makes him simply follow Jacobi’s instruction in the end. He lies back down, feeling utterly out of place in his bedroom, and looks at Jacobi who’s still staring at the floor, hands curled into fists and whole body stiff.

“... Jacobi,” he says quietly, and then nothing.

Jacobi shakes his head sharply, even though there was no reason or real message behind Kepler saying his name, and then he moves, almost abruptly, and lies down next to Kepler. 

Kepler stares at him.

Jacobi didn’t close the door, and there’s the slightest hint of light coming from the living room and pooling into the hallway, warm and yellow, a soft glow that only barely doesn’t reach this room’s threshold. The outlines of Jacobi’s body (only inches away) are sharp against the almost-distant light. His eyes are closed, and he breathes slowly, evenly. It seems very deliberate in its ease.

“Jacobi …” Kepler says again, and this time, he nods.

The silence that follows seems to stretch endless between them. Kepler knows it can’t possibly be more than half an hour, but it feels like hours.

“Go back to sleep,” Jacobi mumbles suddenly, voice soft again, as soft as it had been in the night he’d first asked him if he was okay. “‘t’s why I came here. I– I’m not stupid, I know you’re not sleeping well. Not alone, at least.”

Kepler slowly closes his eyes and, without thinking, whispers, “I never meant for her to die.”

Jacobi draws his shoulders up and presses his head a little more into the pillow. “Don’t,” he says. The word is muffled.

“No, let me…” Kepler trails off. “I– I’m sorry, Jacobi.”

Nothing, for ten seconds, twenty, a minute. Nothing, until Jacobi lifts his head and stares at him, defiant, eyes so full of tears that he can see the glint of them even in darkness. His voice is still perfectly calm, composed. “What for?”

“I– What?”

“What are you sorry for?” Jacobi repeats pointedly. 

“I…” Kepler swallows a little. “I’m sorry she died.”

Jacobi laughs, bitterly. “I am _not_ stupid,” he says again. “I know, I know, I’m Daniel “oh so good at bad coping mechanisms and bad at self-reflection” Jacobi.” He snorts a little. It’s a sound so free of actual humor that Kepler almost flinches a little. “But I’m not an idiot,” Jacobi adds. “You didn’t kill her. It wasn’t your fault, not really, I _know_ , even if I _like_ acting as if I didn’t. It just _happened_. I blow up their doctor, Minkowski shoots my sister, you take out the alien doppelganger. Shit happens, right?”

(For the second time now, Kepler wishes he’d stop talking.)

“... There’s so many _other_ things you could and should be fucking sorry for.”

Kepler tastes something bitter on his tongue as he swallows again. Something bitter and heavy, metallic, it tastes a little like a polished gun smells.

Jacobi shakes his head. “You’re so fucking bad at being a person you don’t even know what you’re supposed to be sorry for,” he says. “Whatever. It’s whatever. That’s not why I’m here, I told you already. You have to get up in like, four hours. Go the fuck back to sleep.”

Kepler doesn’t answer. He closes his eyes.

Before he falls asleep, eventually, scaringly easily, it suddenly occurs to him that there wasn’t the sound of footsteps before Jacobi opened the door.

Jacobi must have stood there since before he’d even woken up.

* * *

The third drawing: a building Kepler only recognizes as the Eiffel Tower because the lovely little girl called Emily told him that’s what it’s supposed to be. Two smiling figures where there should be three. (He’s decided to leave Maxwell out of his stories, from now on, but it feels a lot like betrayal.) One of them is holding a large, cartoonish bomb. A smiling sun in the top right corner wearing sunglasses.

Jacobi stares at it for a moment, something like a half-grin on his face, before he turns to lean against the fridge. He takes a sip of his energy drink and watches Kepler preparing the salad dressing.

Things have … settled down, in a way. There’s some kind of routine to their interactions now. They talk. No lengthy conversations by any means, but they exchange sentences – Jacobi acknowledges Kepler’s stories from work and reacts to his continued suggestion that it might be good for him if he started looking for a job, even if said reaction is nothing more than a shrug every time. It’s comfortable in its relative safety, and neither of them ever brought up Maxwell or their non-conversation about Kepler apologizing for her death again. And… they share the bed now, somehow. That’s something else they don’t talk about, and they rarely go to sleep at the same time anyway, but in the morning, Jacobi’s always there, with one of Kepler’s arms wrapped around him. Sometimes Kepler thinks they _should_ talk about it, but– 

“Salad is gross,” Jacobi says, effectively throwing Kepler’s train of thought off track. (He’s almost thankful for it.)

“It’s a vegetable,” Kepler shrugs without looking up. “You need to–”

“Veggies are gross. Bleh.”

“... You sound exactly like my students.”

“So what, you like them.”

“Jacobi. They’re five.”

“I literally don’t see your point.”

Kepler sighs, and Jacobi grins; he can see it out of the corner of his eyes.

“They really do like your stories, huh?” Jacobi asks, nodding to the drawings. 

Kepler finally looks up, expression softening into a smile as he looks at the fridge. “They do.” He’s quiet for a moment, before he smirks and adds, “They said I was _James Bond, but in space_.”

“Geez. As if your ego wasn’t big enough as is,” Jacobi answers flatly. “They have no idea what they’re doing.”

“Come now. It _was_ adventurous, somehow. For a while. Wouldn’t you say?”

“I really, really wouldn’t.”

“But, Daniel, you’re their hero!”

Jacobi blinks for a moment, and Kepler isn’t sure whether it’s the statement itself that caught him off guard or the fact that he called him Daniel – he didn’t mean to, anyway, it just slipped out–

“What do you mean?” Jacobi eventually settles on, ignoring the break in their own personal protocol, and Kepler gets it, of course, it’s much safer; the very basis of their interactions is still shaky at best, so better not disturb it… But he’s a little disappointed, anyway, and he thinks, _We’re talking, but not we’re still not talking about the things that are important,_ and then thinks, _Funny, that I of all persons would suddenly worry about open communication, oh, the irony._

“They adore you,” Kepler answers; much safer to just answer the question.

“They don’t even know me,” Jacobi says, fiddling with the sleeves of his hoodie, twisting his fingers into it.

“I told them about you.”

“What did you tell them?” Jacobi asks, taking another sip of his energy drink and then staring at it for a moment. He looks like he wants to say something else, but he simply turns around in the end to look at the drawings. “I’m holding a super cool bomb on one of these.”

“You are. I told them you like explosives.”

“PTA meetings will be a blast, I’m sure. No pun intended.”

Kepler laughs, almost startling himself a little as he realizes how genuine it sounds, and just for a moment, it feels exactly like it did during the good times, and they could almost be in a hotel room, on a mission (only that Maxwell is, of course, not there–).

“I’m sure I’ll be able to ease their minds,” Kepler says, turning back to finish the salad. “They’re, after all, just made-up stories.”

“But they aren’t,” Jacobi says slowly, sitting down at the table. “You … tell them about actual missions we were on.”

Kepler nods. “I don’t think I’d be any good at coming up with fictional stories.”

Jacobi looks doubtful, and Kepler knows, of course, that he doesn’t believe a single one of the anecdotes he told him over the course of all the years they were working together, but he chooses not to comment on it. The past isn’t exactly one of the safe subjects to talk about.

“I adjust them, of course. Make them more kid-friendly. We’re the good guys. Out there, saving the world.”

There’s something bitter and sarcastic to the grin this earns him, but Jacobi just nods, and immediately starts piercing the mozzarella pieces with his fork to fish them out of the bowl as Kepler sets the salad down on the table.

* * *

“I get it,” Kepler says, looking at his students, each and every one of whom looks confused. “Time is weird. See, when we were in space, it was dark out all the time, so time didn’t really have a meaning at all. Now, you are all truly lucky. When it’s light out, it’s “a.m.”, and–”

“But what in the morning? Early mornings are dark!” Lara yells, sounding almost offended.

“And twice a year my daddy has to make the clocks right because someone changes it,” Giovanni adds shyly. “Mr. Kepler? Who changes the time?”

Kepler blankly looks at him for a moment and tries to figure out just how the hell he’s supposed to explain reading the time to a class full of kids who ask question he isn’t even sure how to answer.

A light knock at the door saves him from his predicament, and he hopes they will all just forget this conversation ever happened, and if they do, hell, maybe he’ll just let them draw again, no matter how much it will mess up his lesson schedule.

“I’ll be right back,” Kepler says, walking over to the door to open it.

“Hey,” Jacobi says. “Uh, yeah. Hey.”

“Jacobi,” Kepler says slowly. Some small, horribly cruel part of his brain is utterly convinced that he’s here to tell him that he’ll move out; that this is the only logical reason for Jacobi being here; that he’ll be gone by the time Kepler gets home from work, even though this thought, he knows, is far from _logical_ and has no basis whatsoever. The mere idea is still terrifying. 

Emily gasps. “It’s Mr. Jacobi?! Can we meet him?”

Jacobi blinks. “Uh.” He glances past Kepler and is met with a whole class of kindergarteners staring at him in awe. “...Hi?” he says. “I’m, uh. Jacobi. Yeah. Hi? Hi.”

“Did you really fight a monster plant on a space station?”; “Did you really meet aliens?”; “Why are you here?”

Jacobi looks a little overwhelmed for a moment, and seemingly decides that the last of these questions is the easiest to answer. He takes half a step into the classroom and shows them a lunchbox. “I, uh. Kepler forgot his lunch, so I thought…”

Kepler doesn’t even really have the time to process the words and feel surprised about the implication _(Jacobi cares enough to bring me my lunch; I hadn’t even noticed I’d forgotten it, yet–)_ , because this statement earns him a giggle.

“Ohhhh, Mr. Jacobi is Mr. Kepler’s giiiirlfriend!” Tina yells before snickering again and whispering something into Kaytleen’s ear.

“He’s the Bond girl!” Hayden adds. Jacobi’s eyes widen.

“I’m– I’m not– What?”

Kepler hurriedly shakes his head. “Mr. Jacobi is just– He’s just my…” He trails off when he realizes he has no idea how to end this sentence. 

“I only live in … his … apartment,” Jacobi says. He frowns a little, realizing, Kepler suspects, that to a five year old child, this will probably do nothing to make it sound less like they’re in a relationship. 

“You bring him lunch!” Tina says. “My mom brings my dad’s lunch when he forgets it, and they’re boyfriend and girlfriend!”

“No, they’re married,” Giovanni says. “That’s not boyfriend and girlfriend.”

Kepler’s well familiar with the look Tina shoots him, and quickly says. “No fighting. Tina’s parents are still kind of boyfriend and girlfriend, Giovanni.”

Giovanni sighs. Tina sticks her tongue out at him.

“Um.” Jacobi makes, still holding Kepler’s lunch.

“Right, I– Thank you, Jacobi,” Kepler says, reaching for it.

“If they were in love, they wouldn’t use the family last name,” Kaytleen whispers – loudly – into Tina’s general direction. Jacobi blinks a little.

“Mr. Jacobi can’t be Mr. Kepler’s girlfriend because he’s not a girl,” Emily suddenly says. She looks to Kepler as if for approval; as if she’d thought long and hard about it.

“Yeah, thanks. You’re smart,” Jacobi says. Emily beams at him.

“I’m good at drawing!” she says.

“Cool. I’m shit at– uh, no fuck– no! I mean! Don’t use those words.” Jacobi looks panicked for a moment, and Kepler closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Say goodbye to Mr. Jacobi, alright?” he says. There’s disappointed noises in return, a few protests, and a few half-hearted “Goodbye, Mr. Jacobi.”

Jacobi laughs. “What, you’re throwing me out?”

“You used bad words,” Kepler says. “And you’re interrupting my schedule.”

“I’m sure it’s super exciting” Jacobi says, rolling his eyes. “What’re you doing?” he asks, directed at the students now.

“Time,” Giovanni says. “I don’t understand it.”

“Oh,” Jacobi says. “That’s fine. I don’t understand time, either. It doesn’t make sense and it’s all made up and you should go to bed whenever you wa–”

“Jacobi!”

He snorts. “I like it here, I wanna stay. ‘m gonna ruin all the good parenting.”

“Thanks for bringing me my lunch,” Kepler says, ushering Jacobi towards and then out of the door. “I’ll see you later.”

“Rude,” Jacobi says and waves at the kids before he leaves.

* * *

When Kepler leaves the schoolhouse a few hours later, he is, for some reason, not overly surprised to see Jacobi waiting across the street. Kepler smiles as he walks up to him. Jacobi doesn’t smile back, but his posture is open, even with his hands thrust into his pockets because it’s December already and cold, and he looks relaxed. Content, almost.

They start walking together, without saying a word.

“They’re cute. I think,” Jacobi says after a few minutes. The biting cold transforms the words into white fog. 

“They are,” Kepler agrees. “... They don’t mean it when they call you my _girl_ friend, by the way.”

Jacobi scoffs. “Yeah, I know. Don’t worry, I’m really not that insecure about my gender anymore.” He gets serious after a moment and adds, “But thanks.” Some more silence, and then he laughs, more genuine now. “Gee, imagine what they would have said if they knew we’re sharing a bed.”

Kepler cracks a small smile, but the words push him into the kind of contemplation he’s been trying to avoid. He thinks about all the things they don’t talk about, about Maxwell and the bed, about Jacobi’s refusal to look for a job even though they both know it’d do wonders for his mental health, about the way Jacobi somehow senses when Kepler’s afraid to go to sleep because he already _knows_ he’s going to dream; the way he lightly cuddles up to him whenever that’s the case–

He thinks about Jacobi’s words, too – that there are so many things he could and should be sorry for, and that he doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to apologize for. He hasn’t stopped thinking about it since that night, and the worst thing is that Jacobi was right.

The atmosphere between them is light, relaxed, and it makes it simultaneously incredibly hard and terribly easy – Kepler decides that they should talk. About the important things; the things that matter. He opens his mouth to–

“They really like me, huh? You said they adore me and… You weren’t lying.”

Kepler needs a moment to switch his thinking from the theoretical talks they could – should – be having to their actual, current conversation. “They do,” he nods. “... You know, if your visit had been scheduled, you could have actually met them. Talked to them.”

Jacobi huffs a little. “I never liked kids,” he says, and then, “I think it’d be alright if you forgot your lunch again tomorrow.”

Kepler can’t help but smile at the words, and he decides that they can talk about all the important things some other time.

**Author's Note:**

> ...It doesn’t matter which Denny’s. I’ll be there. Or you can find me on tumblr - I'm @possessed-radios, and @shortwaveattentionspan is my podcast sideblog.


End file.
